Lonnie Hicks (www.lonniehicks.com / Chicago Ill)

It was a gathering of the Metaphors
who likened all things
to all other things
never identifying Essences;
leaving nothing as the core..

Similes arrived stating triumphantly that
they were superior to the merely metaphoric
and especially to the Gerunds.

The Nouns were enraged
claiming that they were the origins of things named
and all that could be named.

They all held the Dangling Participle in contempt
whose cohorts hung at the end of the table
speaking in sentences fragmenting.

The Pluperfect laid claim to wedding the Past
and Present
and to having had given birth to Language.

The Action Verbs demurred claiming that all history
depended upon them and their meanings and consequences.

'We are action' they said
'you are all after-thoughts and musings.'

So it was the Poetry Slam
the battle of the Language Parts
cogitating on sentences
and what they mean.

Metaphor opened saying 'poetry is contest-
a battle of words in the arena of created meaning-
designed to feed the brain, open the mind;
give sight to the blind.'

'We are all part of a wagon wheel
and each of us has only a spoken
truth.

'Yes' Simile said 'we are all like angry rose buds
trying to bloom.

Verbatim declared that all Poetry
was based on faith and faith alone.
Anything else was Untruth.

Gerund hung back claiming all meaning is hidden by
hidden meaning and that clarity was mystical.

So in the scrum, no one was able to find the ball.

And then they all went home.